“It’s about time you did have some good news, Zadowa,” he snapped. “Anything more damned disgraceful than the way you’ve let this so-called Black Gang, do you in, I’ve never heard of.”
But the other merely smiled quietly.
“I admit it,” he murmured. “Up to date they have scored a faint measure of success—exaggerated, my friends, greatly exaggerated by the papers. Tonight came the reckoning, which incidentally is the reason why I am a little late. Tonight”—he leaned forward impressively—“the leader of the gang himself honoured me with a visit. And the leader will lead no more.”
“You killed him,” said the girl, helping herself to champagne.
“I did,” answered the Count. “And without the leader I think we can ignore the gang.”
“That’s all right as far as it goes,” said the Reverend Theodosius in a slightly mollified tone. “But have you covered all your traces? In this country the police get peevish over murder.”
The Count gave a self-satisfied smile.
“Not only that,” he remarked, “but I have made it appear as if he had killed himself. Listen, my friends, and I will give you a brief statement of the events of the past few days. It was the day before the affair at Sheffield which caused such a commotion in the papers that I suddenly found out that the leader of this gang had discovered my headquarters in Hoxton. I was actually talking to that wretched man Latter in my office at the time, when I heard outside the call of an owl. Now from information I had received, that was the rallying call of their gang, and I dashed into the passage. Sure enough, standing by the door at the end was a huge man covered from head to foot in black. Whether it was bravado that made him give the cry, or whether it was a ruse to enable him to see me, is immaterial now. As I say—he is dead. But—and this is the point—it made me decide that the office there, convenient though it was, would have to be given up. There were far too many incriminating documents to allow me to run the risk of a police raid; and since I frankly admit now that I was not at all sure what were the relations between this gang and the police, I decided to move my headquarters.”
Count Zadowa helped himself to a sandwich before continuing, with a pleasant feeling that the motionless attention of the Reverend Theodosius was a compliment to his powers as a raconteur. And as the hunchback reflected complacently, there was no falling off in this story—no anticlimax.
“Tonight,” he continued, sipping his glass, “I was completing the final sorting out of my papers with my secretary, when the electric warning disc on my desk glowed red. Now the office was empty, and the red light meant that someone had opened the door outside. I heard nothing, which only made it all the more suspicious. So between us we gathered up every important paper, switched off all lights, and went out through the secret door. Then we waited.”
He turned to the clergyman, still motionless save for a ceaseless tapping of his left knee with his hand.
“As you know, monsieur,” he proceeded, “there is an opening in that door through which one can see into the room. And through that opening I watched developments. After a while a torch was switched on at the further door, and I heard voices. And then the man holding the torch came cautiously in. He was turning it into every corner, but finally he focused it on the desk. I heard him speak to one of his companions, who came into the beam of light and, started to pick the lock. And it was then that I switched on every light, and closed the other door electrically. They were caught—caught like rats in a trap.”
The hunchback paused dramatically, and drained his champagne. If he was expecting any laudatory remarks on the part of his audience he was disappointed. But the Reverend Theodosius and his little Janet might have been carved out of marble, save for that ceaseless tapping by the man of his left knee. In fact, had Count Zadowa been less pleased with himself and less sure of the effect he was about to cause he might have had a premonition of coming danger. There was something almost terrifying in the big clergyman’s immobility.
“Like rats in a trap,” repeated the hunchback gloatingly. “Two men I didn’t know, and—well, you know who the other was. True he had his mask on by way of disguise, but I recognized him at once. That huge figure couldn’t be mistaken—it was the leader of the Black Gang himself.”
“And what did you do, Zadowa?”
The Reverend Theodosius’s voice was very soft.
“How did you dispose of one or all those men so that no suspicion is likely to rest on you?”
The hunchback rubbed his hands together gleefully.
“By an act which, I think you will agree, is very nearly worthy of yourself, monsieur. To shoot was impossible—because I am not sufficiently expert with a revolver to be sure of killing them. No—nothing so ordinary as that. They saw me watching them: ‘I can see his eyes, Hugh,’ said one of them to the leader, and I remember suddenly that in the passage not far from where I stood were half a dozen bombs—What is it, monsieur?”
He paused in alarm at the look on the clergyman’s face as he slowly rose.
“Bombs!” he snarled. “Bombs! Tell me what you did, you dreg!”
“Why,” stammered the frightened hunchback “I threw one into the room. I no longer wanted it as an office, and … Ah, heaven, don’t murder me! … What have I done?”
His words died away in a dreadful gurgle, as the clergyman, his face diabolical with fury, sprang on him and gripped him by the throat. He shook the hunchback as a terrier shakes a rat, cursing horribly under his breath—and for a moment or two
